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Overseas Students (Fees)
10. Mr. Tony Lloyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will make a statement on fees for overseas students. [3877]
Mr. Forth: We welcome the presence of the increasing number of overseas students in our universities and colleges. This shows that people abroad recognise that a British education is an excellent investment.
Mr. Lloyd: Does the Minister recognise the undoubted benefits, both commercial and cultural, that this country gains from those many people who, having been educated here, have risen to senior positions in their own societies? The Government's decision some years ago to increase fees was an act of vandalism. As we have a listening Secretary of State, is it possible that she might seriously consider whether that was a wise move for this country?
Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman ignores the fact that for several years, since the early 1980s, the number of overseas students in all categories has increased year on year, every year, and continues to do so. That suggests that the premise underlying his question is wrong.
The implication of what the hon. Gentleman has said is that we should find money from somewhere to subsidise more overseas students coming to this country. I would find it rather difficult to justify that in current circumstances. If, at some stage, he or his colleagues would say where they would find the money to do what he suggests, I should be very interested.
Mr. Luff:
Does my hon. Friend understand that, following the withdrawal of so many local education authorities--including the Hereford and Worcester LEA, which covers his and my constituencies--from making discretionary grants, so many institutions that teach dance and drama depend on the income from overseas students?
I urge him again to consider the possibility of revising the scheme to ensure that our constituents in Hereford and Worcester, as well as those in the remainder of the country, can benefit from a proper training.
Mr. Forth:
It is entirely a matter for LEAs to make a judgment about the value of the discretionary awards and their nature. If the tuition in the subjects to which my hon. Friend referred is excellent, no doubt it will attract overseas students in exactly the way as it will attract students from the home market.
Mr. Madden:
What action will the Minister take to prevent overseas students from being adversely affected by the Asylum and Immigration Bill, which denies child benefit to those granted limited leave to remain in the United Kingdom?
Expenditure (Schools)
11. Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans she has to ensure that additional spending on education reaches schools and pupils; and if she will make a statement. [3878]
Mrs. Gillian Shephard: We have provided an extra £878 million for schools next year, and that is where I expect the funds to go. Authorities that choose to do otherwise will be called to account by parents and governors, and rightly so.
Mr. Hawkins: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, although parents in Lancashire are extremely pleased to know that that additional money is being provided, they are becoming increasingly frustrated by the fact that the local education authority, under Labour control, continues to waste money, as it did last year, when it made cuts in schools at the same time as providing advisers to advise teenage girls on lesbianism? Is that not the record of Labour in office, and is it not a disgrace?
Mrs. Shephard: My hon. Friend makes his own point. Lancashire is set to benefit from a 5.5 per cent. increase in its education SSA. It is therefore well placed to ensure that those extra resources go to the classrooms. I am quite certain that the pressure exerted on the LEA by my hon. Friend and his colleagues will ensure that that happens.
Mr. Pickthall: Will the Secretary of State tell the people of Lancashire precisely how much of that supposed rise will go to new spend in schools after taking into account inflation, the teachers' pay rise, the extra numbers coming on stream in schools and the extra spend that is required on special educational needs? How much will be left?
Mrs. Shephard: The extra money is there, as it always is, to fund the teachers' pay award, the increase in pupil numbers and so on, and of course to take account of LEAs' own priorities. Naturally, I would expect them to continue to look for savings and to ensure that the extra money is used to maximum advantage.
Mr. Sykes: May I put a Yorkshire point of view to my right hon. Friend? Instead of putting up with the crescendo of whingeing from Opposition Members, to which we have been subjected this afternoon, may I tell her that the people of North Yorkshire are absolutely delighted with the additional resources in this year's education SSA? Does she think that it would be a good idea, if it wanted to spend more money on education, for North Yorkshire county council to sell its £14 million worth of farm land?
Mrs. Shephard: A Yorkshire point of view is always refreshing, as we have just heard. I can do no more than say to my hon. Friend that I am delighted that he and his colleagues, and, indeed, North Yorkshire, are pleased with the extra resources allocated to education. What the local authority decides to do with its farm land, and its other assets, is a matter for it.
Mr. Bryan Davies: As the nation is becoming aware that this so-called extra expenditure on schools is largely illusory, shall we consider some of the realities of the Budget? Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to explain to the country the benefits of slashing higher
education capital expenditure by a third and further education colleges' capital expenditure by two thirds over the next couple of years?
Mrs. Shephard: Higher education and further education recurrent spending has been protected. Indeed, there is provision for an extra 12 per cent. increase in student numbers in further education and provision for the continuing steady growth in higher education numbers. There is still provision for capital programmes for higher and further education, but we expect them to take advantage, as indeed they already are--in the case of higher education to the tune of £1.6 billion--of the private finance initiative.
Sir Patrick Cormack: As my right hon. Friend will know from her recent visit, there is considerable satisfaction in Staffordshire about the recent announcement. Will she send a note to Members of Parliament of all counties pointing out what prudent management of this extra money could result in?
Mrs. Shephard: I shall certainly take on board my hon. Friend's suggestion.
Unemployment
12. Dr. Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment she has made of the impact of the Budget on unemployment. [3879]
Mr. Forth: The Budget of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor built on the policies that have helped to achieve a fall in unemployment of more than 700,000 in the past three years.
Dr. Jones: I welcome the fall in unemployment announced today, but the Minister will realise that it is falling at a rate of only 0.5 per cent. a month and that the Red Book assumes that it will remain at more than 2 million until the turn of the century. Will he explain how big cuts in the home energy efficiency scheme, housing, transport and other construction projects can possibly help in the fight against unemployment? Surely he will realise that the private finance initiative, which is supposed to take over, is viewed with dismay by the business community. It sees the PFI as an abrogation by the Government of their responsibility for infrastructure projects, which are needed in their own right and to create employment.
Mr. Forth: I have been struggling to remember whether the hon. Lady was one of the Opposition Members who voted against the tax cuts in the Budget-- I think that she was. It strikes me as rather astonishing that she should do that and then express such concern about the level of unemployment. Even she must know what reduces unemployment, and we have been successful in doing that--more successful than our continental partners, whose policies some Opposition Members wish to emulate. Our unemployment rate is lower than those of Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and there is considerable evidence that the policies that we have pursued over the past three or four years are attracting inward investment and creating the climate in which unemployment will continue to fall.
Sir Michael Neubert: Is it not true that, as a proportion of the population of working age, this country has more
people in work and fewer people out of work than any other major country in Europe? On the day when a further reduction in unemployment has been followed by a further reduction in interest rates, is it not imperative, and in the best interests of the unemployed, that the Government continue on the course that they have so successfully set themselves?
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out those pertinent facts--and they are even more pertinent as our record on, for example, women's employment is also one of the best in the European Union. I believe that what we are creating stands comparison excellently with the record of any other country in the European Union and of many beyond. That leads me to agree with my hon. Friend that we should stick firmly to the policies that we have pursued. If we do that, we can expect to see continued steady economic growth through 1996 and beyond.
Mr. Meacher: After a Budget conspicuous for the total absence of any job-creation strategy, despite the fact that unemployment still stands at more than 2.25 million, will the Minister recognise that today's supposed fall in unemployment is a mirage, because Government figures also released today show that, far from rising, the number of people in employment has fallen by 22,000 over the past quarter? Does that not clearly show that people are disappearing from the unemployment count not because they are getting jobs but because they are dropping out of the labour market altogether? Is it not now clear that the so-called economic recovery is spluttering out and that, with a 0.25 per cent. cut in interest rates, there is no prospect either of staving off the risk of recession or of preventing a rise in unemployment this winter?
Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman, who must be the walking personification of old Labour, really should get a new script, because what he says simply will not do. Not only is it grotesquely inaccurate, but it completely ignores the fact that in the Budget we cut taxes for small companies, lowered tax bills for the self-employed, capped business rates, lowered the qualifying age for capital gains tax retirement relief and increased the VAT threshold--to name only a few of the measures immediately related to small businesses. The Government recognise that small firms will be the creators of jobs for the foreseeable future, and we shall help them. The Labour party, with its blind obsession with, for example, a statutory minimum wage, would crucify job creation rather than help it.
Mr. Dover: Does the Minister accept that not only one Budget but a series of good, responsible Budgets has reduced the unemployment rate in Chorley, in the middle of Lancashire, from 10 or 11 per cent. to 4.5 per cent.?
Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend is right, and I am glad that he has pointed out that each constituency up and down the country has seen the creation of real jobs. Our constituents are getting jobs, and they recognise what is going on. They also recognise the value of economic stability and inward investment, even if the Opposition do not.
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